Chapter Nine
‘Damn, damn, damn.’ Anna sat up in bed and realised she was late. Of all the days! She and Daniel were doing a shoot in Leicester Square, a promotion of the iconic bronze film-star statues outside the cinema. Only yesterday Daniel had impressed on her the importance of getting there early, before too many members of the public were around, getting in the way of the shots. They’d arranged to meet at seven o’clock, but it was nearly that time now. She hurled herself across the landing and into the shower, avoiding getting her hair wet so she didn’t have to dry it. Instead she scraped it back into a ponytail and threw on yesterday’s clothes, the nearest ones she could find.
At the station luck was with her and she managed to run onto a train just before it left the station. Predictably there were no seats left, so she stood at the end of the aisle, hanging on to a metal pole as the train rumbled towards central London. As she caught her breath she reached in her bag for her phone. There were two missed calls from Daniel and a voicemail. Her blood ran cold as she listened to it — he was instructing her to meet him at the location rather than his house, because if he didn’t leave now there would be no shoot at all. She’d be lucky if she still had a job by the end of today.
* * *
Daniel lugged the equipment into his car, cursing Anna as he did so. In times gone by this would have been perfectly natural to him, but recently he had got used to her being by his side. It was unfamiliar not to have her here today. He’d been predisposed not to like her when he’d first taken her on, but he had to admit that, over the last few weeks, she’d proved him wrong. She was hard-working and perceptive. She had a feel for photography, which had surprised him, and which helped a great deal — she seemed to instinctively know what he needed. Until today she had always been punctual. Sod’s law that when he really needed her to be in on time, she was late. She couldn’t have picked a worse moment. And to top it all, it was a damp grey day, which would make getting the good shots even harder, especially if the models were grumpy. He’d just have to hope the weather brightened by the time he got there, and that there weren’t too many people around. And he’d have to hope that Anna got there soon, because he would need her to help set up as quickly as possible. He cursed her again. Why did she have to choose today of all days to be late?
When he arrived and parked up, he was glad to see the weather meant Leicester Square was relatively quiet, but there was still no sign of Anna. Some of the models had arrived, shivering despite the thick coats they were wearing. He’d start with some of the easy shots first, with the models cosying up to the statues of Paddington Bear and Mr Bean that were posed sitting on benches. Suddenly Anna arrived, breathing heavily as she’d obviously been running. She was wearing yesterday’s clothes, had her hair scraped back into a haphazard ponytail and was wearing no make-up. No guesses what she’d been up to.
‘I’m so sorry, Daniel,’ she said between gasps. ‘I overslept and—’
He held up his hand. ‘I don’t want to hear it. You’ve obviously had a boozy night out and certainly not got home, judging by the look of you, but I can’t have your social life interfering with work. Work has to come first and if you’re not going to be committed to that, I suggest you find yourself another job.’
‘No, I am committed. It’s just that my alarm didn’t—’
‘I told you I don’t want to hear your excuses. There isn’t time. The light isn’t great and the locals are starting to get curious. We need to get this shoot in the bag as soon as possible. The images have to be delivered first thing Monday morning and we’re going to have a hell of a job editing them if the weather doesn’t improve.’
‘Of course.’ She lowered her head. ‘What do you need?’
‘I’m going to do some shots on the benches, but I need you to set up some steps next to Mary Poppins and then Gene Kelly, so that the models can be at the same height. Can you manage that?’
‘Of course, I’ll do it straight away. Is there anything you need for your shots first?’
‘No. I’ll sort that out for myself.’
He felt a pang of guilt as she nodded and slunk away, but he couldn’t have her social life interrupting his work. Her social life. Envy pierced him as he thought about what she might have been doing last night and who she might have been doing it with. She was young and attractive, if in a girl-next-door kind of way, and she could be with whomever she wanted to.
He watched as she carried the mounted steps across the square towards the Mary Poppins statue. She was probably cursing him like mad, he thought now, judging by the way her forehead was creased in a frown and how her jaw was held tightly, as though to stop herself from saying what she really thought of him. He didn’t blame her really. Okay, so maybe he had a right to tell her off today, but most of the time he was exceptionally short with her for a completely different reason. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, as unprofessional as it was, the honest truth was that his feelings for her were growing by the day. Being grumpy with her was one way he could stop himself from telling her how he really felt.
* * *
An hour later and it had begun to rain, putting an end to the hope of getting any more decent shots.
‘Come on, we might as well call it a day. Go back to the studio and see if we’ve got anything salvageable.’
Anna felt a pang of guilt at his words. If she hadn’t overslept, they might have been able to get some better shots earlier. She hated to think what would happen if they had to reshoot. Would he want to take the cost out of her wages? She hoped not, she certainly couldn’t afford it.
They packed up in silence. It wasn’t until he was driving back to the studio that she attempted to apologise again.
‘Daniel, I really am sorry about this morning.’
‘I don’t need to know,’ he said. Then he added more softly, ‘Look, it’s not as important if we’re in the studio, but if we’re out on a shoot or up against a deadline then I need to know I can rely on you.’
‘You can. This was just a blip. Last night I—’
She was about to explain her family situation but he interrupted her.
‘Let’s just move on, shall we?’
‘Sure,’ she replied and lapsed into silence. But she couldn’t say she was happy. He’d automatically assumed she’d been late because she’d been out drinking — her red puffy eyes had probably made him think that. Would he even believe her if she told him it was because she’d spent most of last night crying? Even though she felt they treated her badly, after what they’d all been through her family was important to her. She just wished they could show her a little bit of respect in return.
She supposed it was natural for Daniel to automatically assume she’d had a heavy night out. It’s what most people her age did, not running a household and looking after grown men who couldn’t seem to do anything for themselves. If she told him a bit more about her family life, it might help them get on better and stop him making assumptions about her. But now was certainly not the right time, as he’d made it quite clear he wasn’t interested in any of her explanations.
* * *
‘It’s no good.’ Daniel sighed after spending an hour poring over the photos he’d uploaded from the camera. ‘None of these are suitable. We’re going to have to reshoot.’
His words filled Anna with dread. Was he going to blame her for this?
‘Let me have a look,’ she said, desperate to try to salvage the situation.
‘What, think you know better than me?’
He gave her a sideways glance. She was amazed to see there was almost a twitch of a smile on his lips. Where had that come from?
‘No, of course not, just a different perspective, that’s all.’
‘Fine, fill your boots. I’m going to make a coffee. You want one?’
‘Please.’ She nodded and settled down into his chair, scrolling through images. She was filled with despondency when she realised he was right. The light was poor on all of them. She selected three that might be salvageable and tried to filter the light to make them more presentable.
‘How about these three?’ she asked when he returned with the coffees.
He paused for a moment, considering, as she flicked through them.
‘Um, they’re okay, I suppose. But I don’t think they’d withstand being blown up into large posters. Are they the only ones you found?’
‘Just about.’
‘Then we are going to have to reshoot. The promoter needs more than three and they’ve got to be much better than this. I’ll give them a ring and explain about the weather. In the meantime, do the best you can with those — we’ll send them through and see what they say. Let’s hope we can reschedule for tomorrow and get some better weather. Can you look up the forecast for me?’
Anna picked up her phone and was happy to see that the forecast for tomorrow was much better than today.
Daniel nodded. ‘Good, if they give us the go ahead, we’ll need to get on to the agency and book some more models for first thing tomorrow. Let’s just hope everyone can accommodate us.’
Anna nodded silently, not daring to ask the question of who was going to pay for the reshoot, although at least he seemed to be blaming the weather more than her late arrival.
When Daniel came off the phone, he seemed relieved that a reshoot due to the weather conditions had been accepted and Anna quickly set about rebooking the models for tomorrow morning.
‘So that’s that, then,’ Daniel said once it was all in place. ‘Seven a.m. at the same place tomorrow and don’t be late!’
‘I won’t, I promise.’ Anna felt contrite. She would set her old alarm clock as well as her phone to make sure that she woke up in time. The last thing she wanted after today was to be late again.
‘Of course, having to shoot tomorrow is going to make the deadline really tight.’
Anna thought she could make amends. ‘I’m happy to work the weekend to meet the Monday morning deadline.’
‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to,’ Daniel said. ‘But I need to leave here at lunchtime tomorrow. Ben’s in an athletics competition after school and I promised I’d be there to watch him.’
‘That’s okay, I can edit the photographs here and send them to you.’
Daniel shook his head. ‘No, I need to do them myself, but I don’t want to eat into my time with Ben. It would be better if you came with me to Cheshire. You can do the preliminary editing and we can work on the final images together when Ben’s asleep.’
‘You want me to come to Cheshire?’ she asked, astounded at his comment. ‘But I—’
‘Sorry. I’m sure that’s going to upset your social life, but we’ve already cocked up on this once and I need to make sure what we send over on Monday is as good as it can be. I’m not comfortable working at a distance on this one.’
‘Yes, of course. I wasn’t thinking about my social life, it’s just . . .’
‘Just what?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Of course I’ll come to Cheshire. I’ll make these the best pictures they can be.’
She did feel partly responsible that they had to reshoot, so she really had no choice but to go along with what he wanted. Though, after last night, she wondered what her family would think of her going away with her boss for the weekend. Her dad would hit the roof and Jack would be full of snide comments. Well, she’d just have to deal with that when she got home.
‘Thank you, Anna. I do appreciate it.’
‘That’s okay. But, as it is short notice, do you think I could have some time off today to get myself sorted?’
‘Of course,’ Daniel said. ‘You can take the rest of the day off. I’m sure you’ll want to make it up to your boyfriend, not being around for the weekend.’
Anna didn’t bother to tell him that it wasn’t her boyfriend who would need consoling, but her dad and brothers.